For sign repair and installation business, the higher
the job, the better
John Douglas has a job that
lets him hang around a lot of places - Morgan Keengan & Co. Inc., the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and
Madison Hotel are just a few.
Fortunately, hanging around is all part of the strategy Douglas has found
useful to grow his 18-month-old business, Douglas Climbing and Rappelling Co. He has built a client list that includes some
of the biggest businesses — if not tallest buildings — in the Memphis area because of his special talent and skills.
The biggest challenge Douglas has faced getting the businesses off the ground has been to educate the public
as to the possibilities and advantages of tackling high-rise tasks from the top down versus the ground up.
“It sells itself — where it’s known,” says Douglas of his special brand of installing signs
and banners from hundreds of feet in the air at the end of specially fabricated climbing ropes.
It’s a skill Douglas learned serving five years in the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, climbing in the
mountains in upstate New York and jumping out of helicopters. He later got his rappelling certification through the Mississippi
Fire Academy.
“It’s something most people are scared of,” Douglas says.
Douglas Climbing and Rappelling specializes in installing and repairing neon signs and other signage and
banners on high-rise structures, but recently added window washing and weatherproofing to help fill up the schedule and provide
other services for clients. His customers include Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Memphis Marriott, the Southern College
of Optometry and property management firms. He’s even been known to shimmy up a flag pole that needs repairing.
“When I get in with somebody, I try to do everything,” he says.
He recently invested $3,000 in a used bucket truck for smaller jobs or tasks closer to the ground.
But working from the top down is Douglas’ bread and butter. In fact, he jokes that he’s sort of a klutz
unless he’s hanging off a building.
“Put me 200 feet in the air and I’m
nimble as a cat,” he says.
That skill, combined with his 15 years’ working in the sign
industry and being a journeyman electrician, has already gotten the attention of a national sign company that engaged Douglas
for a job in April to fix two letters atop a 500-foot office building in Indianapolis. The entire job took 36 hours, most
of it driving, with only a couple of hours for the work itself. Being able to serve as an affordable subcontracting option
for a national sign company has been a crucial piece of the business model.
He charges
$150 per hour, plus travel expenses, which compares to $400 per hour with a four-hour minimum plus $80-$150 per hour for the
service tech a sign company would traditionally charge, Douglas says.
Since that
first job in Indianapolis for the national client, Douglas has gotten assignments from the same company in Jackson, Miss.,
Florida and Atlanta.
Jeff Smith, site operations and maintenance supervisor for Methodist
University Hospital, has worked in facilities maintenance for 20 years, including the last year at Methodist.
The hospital, 2 million square feet spread over two blocks with two 16-foot buildings, is a particularly
tough spot for traditional sign companies to tackle from the ground with cranes or cherry pickers, Smith says.
“There’s so much built all around,” he says. “His rappelling is ideal.”
Smith says Douglas should find plenty of opportunities.
“There’s
so few of them and they’re so specialized that they get called if needed,” he says.
That is Douglas’ other challenge — meeting the needs of local clients with the temptation to go after business
for national clients.
One of his first big deals was for a major sign installation in
Florida that would have netted the company almost $30,000 for a month of work, Douglas says. He could have used the money
for new equipment. Instead, he turned it down, opting to take care of local clients who mean more year-round work, he says.
That decision led him to expand services to include washing windows and weather proofing and to train his
26-year-old step-daughter, who has pushed him to get her into the business.
Finding
people willing and able to swing from the top of high rises isn’t easy, Douglas says, so when he finds willing and able-bodied
people, he wants to have opportunities for them.
csheffield@bizjournals.com | (901) 259-1726
